TREE-RING ANALYSIS OF TIMBERS FROM LOWER BROCKHAMPTON GATEHOUSE, NEAR BROMYARD, HEREFORDSHIRE
Author(s): Nigel Nayling
Lower Brockhampton Gatehouse is one of a group of buildings located at the heart of a country estate now owned by the National Trust. The gatehouse bridges the partially-surviving moat which surrounds Lower Brockhampton House, a moated manor believed to originate in the late-fourteenth or early-fifteenth century. Ten samples from throughout the building were dated indicating felling of the parent trees in the mid-sixteenth century. Two samples retained the bark edge but gave slightly different felling dates. One, from a beam in the ground-floor ceiling, gave a felling date in the winter of AD 1542/3. Another, from a strut in the central roof truss, gave a felling date of winter AD 1543/4. The difference between the two dates could be a reflection of stockpiling with trees felled between six and eighteen months apart prior to their conversion and use in construction of the gatehouse. Alternatively, a number of trees could have been felled in the winter AD 1542/3, and construction commenced, and additional trees felled and converted, as required, including a tree in the winter of AD 1543/4 from which the timber employed as a strut in the central roof truss was derived. In either case, it would appear that construction could have been completed during or soon after the winter of AD 1543/4.
- Report Number:
- 98/2001
- Series:
- CfA Reports
- Pages:
- 17
- Keywords:
- Dendrochronology Standing Building
